


you can't hide the way you make us glow

by orphan_account



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: AU, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-24
Updated: 2014-05-24
Packaged: 2018-01-26 09:16:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1683059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry likes to keep to himself - and Niall likes to make that difficult.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you can't hide the way you make us glow

**Author's Note:**

> title from : Take Care by Beach House

>>

 

 

The first time Harry sees Niall, he has brown hair. Trimmed neatly up top to form a faux-hawk and shaven on the sides. He's sitting in the art room on the tiled floor crusted with old paint, laughing boisterously as he helps a guy with much shorter red hair paint a set piece. _Probably for the upcoming rendition of Alice in Wonderland that the drama department are putting on_ , Harry thinks.

He's standing in the doorway - holding onto a manila folder he was given not five minutes ago by his homeroom teacher (slash science teacher, if you will), apparently filled with the copies of yearbook photos to be used for the cast board. Or something.

He raises a hand and knocks three times on the wooden threshold, suddenly overwhelmed by the impact that had on the activity in the room. So many heads snapped towards him at once he would have mistaken the art room as a meerkat habitat. "Uh, hi." He holds up the folder, not making much of an effort to fix it when it flops over the side of his hand. "Is Ms. Dolan around?"

The brown haired boy jolts up from the floor and walks so quickly to Harry it feels like time sped up, all the while he's wiping paint onto his jean cutoffs. He reaches out for the folder and takes it in his hands, holding the top open with two fingers as he looks inside. "Oh sweet." He says happily, looking back up at Harry's face with the brightest smile. "Thanks, man. I'll make sure she gets these."

Harry leaves when the boy turns away, walking back down the hall and past the gymnasium. 

He swears he can still hear his laugh echo through the corridor.

 

<<

 

The second time Harry sees Niall, he has blonde hair. It's styled differently but Harry doesn't take much notice. He's sitting out in the courtyard at a stone picnic table, his arm slung around his girlfriend Nann's (yes. that's her name) shoulders as she reads her book. Harry still doesn't know this boy's name, which has bothered him for a month now. 

He splays his hand around the prominent bone of Nann's opposite shoulder, smiling at her when she looks up at him with a raised eyebrow. She's beautiful in this light, her mousy brown hair a little messy, parted down the center and tucked behind one ear. Huge glasses that are _actually_ for seeing and not just for accessory resting on the bridge of her nose. Her skin tone is fair but still lovely despite her frequent complaints that she 'sparkles in the sunlight like a vampire', but it just makes it easier to tell when she's blushing.

Niall has his hands hidden in his hoodie pockets, and as he passes their picnic table, he glances over his shoulder and smiles almost mischievously in Harry's direction. But before he can smile back, his head is facing forward and he's taken off the other way. Harry buries his face in Nann's hair and inhales. "Are you smelling my hair, Harold?" She asks with a gentle lilt to her voice.

They laugh and he leans back again, and she allows him to pull her closer to his body - still in tune with her book. 

 

>>

 

The third time Harry sees Niall, he actually knows his name..

 _And_ his hair is teal with the roots a light brown. He basically materializes at the table in the seat across from Harry, pulling his bright yellow hood down from where it was covering his hair from the rain. That's when his new hair colour was discovered, you see.

"Hello," He greets, and there's an accent wedged in there that Harry can't quite pinpoint. Nevertheless, he smiles, nodding his head once. Niall hums and looks around himself ; at the clouded over sky, the damp concrete, the puddles, etc. He looks curious but not bothered that his hair is getting wetter and wetter by the second. "You're sitting out here alone because...?"

Harry shrugs, squinting his eyes as he looks up again. "I like sitting here, and the rain doesn't bother me."

The boy with teal hair smiles again, closed mouth but still just as pleased. "Where's the girl you usually sit with? The one with the books?"

"Nann?"

Niall shrugs, and Harry internally faceplants because  _right, how would he know that?_  "She moved away last weekend."

"Oh." 

Harry shrugs this time and exhales a puff of visible air. He watches Niall do the same and he chuckles. "I used to pretend I was smoking when I was little. I'd just go outside on a winter day or something and breathe and my big brother would say  _'one day you'll be addicted to doing the real thing'_." He exhales again.

This confuses Harry. He taps his fingers against the tabletop. "Do you smoke?" 

Niall stares at him for a moment or two before he makes an indescribable noise in the back of his throat. "Not often. Do you?" And Harry shakes his head. "Never tried it."

A pause.

"I like your hair." And if it wasn't for the sincere smile spreading over Harry's lips, it probably wouldn't have sounded like a compliment. He doesn't regret bringing up the topic, even though for the next ten minutes all they talked about was hair and how Niall hated change generally but also hated keeping his hair one colour. It lasted for what seemed like hours, but neither seemed to mind - to involved in the conversation to notice that the rain had gotten more intense and was now soaking their uncovered heads.

"I'm Harry, by the way." 

The boy with the teal hair nodded thoughtfully and slid off the bench, "Niall." then jogged across the grass and inside the school. 

 

<<

 

The fourth time Harry sees Niall, they're sitting on Harry's front porch working on a project they got paired together for. He knows he's staring but he can't find the discipline to stop, and he knows Niall is aware of this doing but he's not really doing anything to stop it either. In fact, he's blushing.

"Pass me the glue?" He asks meekly, and Harry complies, snapping out of his faze and reaching behind him for the gluestick - sending various other supplies toppling over. He chuckles nervously and passes the supply to the other boy who thanks him and gets right back to work. 

He gets a text halfway through, from Nick. 

**to: harry**

**message: where r u?**

He looks at it for a while, then types a reply.

**to: nick**

**message: working on a project with niall. why?**

In one way, he's happy he doesn't get anymore texts after that, but in another.. he's worried. Mainly worried that his friends will do something stupid to prove how little they approve of Harry and Niall's budding friendship, like show up on his doorstep and harass them. But thankfully they do neither. 

 

>>

 

The fifth time Harry sees Niall, his hair is lilac all the way through, lazily styled so it falls across his forehead. 

He's not in the mood to talk to him but there's a tingling in the pit of his stomach that makes him want to just run across the busy hallway and attack him with hugs and happy greetings. He was interrogated the other day by his "closest" friends and was given an ultimatum. " _It's either us or him, Harry. Your reputation is way too valuable you know."_  And that's the only thing stopping him, really. 

It hurts him when the hall clears up and Niall turns from his locker after he's closed it, books in hand and a smile on his face. Harry closes his own locker and turns away - and he can only imagine how he would feel if Niall did the same to him. He hopes the boy is better than him in that respect and that things like that wouldn't bother him.

But he doesn't talk to Harry for the rest of the day, but shows up the next morning (a Saturday) to invite him on a walk. 

 

>>

 

"Do you come by here a lot?"

"Yes." Niall says, his lips twitching up into a grin as he tugs Harry along by the arm down the dirt path and along the bay of a secluded pond area. "Isn't it lovely?" Harry agrees with him and shudders vocally and physically when he steps in a puddle. 

They walk for a while, half in silence and half drowned in chatter - until they find a bench (that Niall obviously knew existed there all along) and sit down. Everything goes quiet for a second it seems, all the noises of the busy streets and laughing children put to a halt - and Harry thinks it's better this way, only being able to hear nature and the lovely boy sitting next to him. They start talking again and the topic switches every minute it seems, until it ends with them comparing their lives and feelings about things. It's insightful.

Harry tells Niall as subtly as he can about how his best friend from a few years prior passed away. About how he left for school one morning but never showed up, and when his mother got the call from the school she rushed home from work expecting to see him playing Xbox or something, but all she found was a note on his neatly made bed.

Niall keeps quiet through the entire story, looking at Harry's features with worry as he listens. Then as the speaking comes to a stop, he picks it up again, leaning over the side of the bench to pick up a slightly wilted daisy. "It's funny, how we kill flowers because we think they are beautiful - but kill ourselves because we think we are not."

And Harry thinks he wants to kiss him.

But he doesn't.

 

<<

 

Harry sits at his sister's graduation ceremony with his mother, sitting low in the plastic chair as he listens to the names being listed. When a familiar name pops up he hears loud cheering from the middle section of the chairs. Greg  _Horan_.

Which reminds him instantly of Niall  _Horan_.

He peers over his shoulder and smirks, at the family cheering and clapping as their oldest son crossed the stage and got his diploma, and especially at the boy wearing the bright yellow raincoat on the sunniest day they've had all week - also probably the loudest of them all. 

Though he doesn't get to talk to the Irish boy, he gets to sit and admire him for a while. Then as he and his family dip out early probably to go celebrate, Harry gets to sit while his extended family congratulate his sister and invite them all out to dinner. He gets to envy her, envy every graduate. Because as much as he  _loves_ (notice the sarcasm) being a junior, he'd much rather be free from his educational restraints for at least a little while.

>> 

 

 **(Probably not)** The last time he sees Niall, he has pastel purple hair that has gone brown at the roots. He runs up Harry's driveway as his family is packing the car one summer morning to go to their cabin. Harry's mother and sister are bustling around inside the house, talking indistinctly and laughing as they toss blankets and pillows onto the porch for Harry to retrieve and put in the trunk.

He's out of breath, pressing the palms of his hands to his knees to catch his breath. "I'm so glad- _breath_ \- you're still here- _breath_ \- I thought you'd be gone already."

"I'm.. uh, hello." Harry smiles gently. "Did you run all the way here?"

Niall nods quickly.

He looks behind him to check if his mother and sister were ready yet, and he groaned at the realization that they weren't. Not much of a surprise, knowing them. "I'm leaving soon," He says slowly, blinking as he looked back at Niall. All red faced and wild hair. His arms and neck were even blushing, and he was panting like a dog that just ran around the yard too many times.

"I know. You told me on the last day of school and I-" Niall swallows, subsiding his heavy breathing for a moment. "I remembered like, thirty minutes ago so.. I.. yeah, I'm here." He smiles. 

"Do you have a phone? Can you text me?" He asks, taking Niall's freckly arm in one of his hands and rummaging through a nearby bag for a Sharpie with the other. He writes down his cellphone number before he even gets a full reply, grinning at his remotely neat penmanship. 

He releases the purple haired boy's arm and steps back a little - and with that, the boy steps forward.

Places one hand on Harry's shoulder, the other on his neck, and his heartbeat instantly picks up. "Have you ever kissed a boy, Harry?"

He shakes his head quickly, making a squeamish noise in partial reply. Niall exhales through his nose, looking calm and surprisingly collected for how close their faces are right now. "Would you like to?"

Even if he tried to turn around and check if anyone was watching he wouldn't be able to, it felt like the other boy's hands were glued to his body, not moving and probably not planning on doing that anytime soon, or so it seemed. "If you want?" He tried nervously, blinking harshly so his eyes would drift.

"But do _you_ want to?" 

He was persistent, that was for sure. Stubborn as well.  

"Harry! Is everything in the car?" His mother called from the house, and his sister's voice was suddenly getting closer and closer until he could clearly hear every word she was saying into her phone. 

A pair of lips were pressing against his and before he could register what was happening, they were gone. Aswell as the presence of the boy with the oddly coloured head of hair - he was running back down the street. Calling "bye!" over his shoulder.

 

And now, Harry is sure this will not be the last time he sees Niall. Whether his hair is purple or green or blonde or brown, or non existent. He'll see him again and he'll pay him back for kissing him and running off.

 

<<

 

**Author's Note:**

> the flower quote is from Tumblr btw :)


End file.
